Mail Services

We’ll show you how to mail your job in the most economical manner. Postage costs are controllable if you pre-plan.

There are several ways to mail via the United States Postal Service (USPS). First Class, Presorted and Bulk and Every Door Direct. Let’s break those down for you.

First Class Mail

Everybody knows that you can put a first class stamp on an envelope and pop it in the mail. Paying or sending bills, writing a letter or sending out a post card or invitations are very common uses for regular first class stamps.

If you are sending out letters, invitations, postcards or any type of mail and have a database, we can address your envelopes to eliminate hand writing them. You can stuff, seal, add postage and mail them, or we can perform those functions for you.

To get started, Contact Us with an explanation of your job or your goals. We’ll have our Customer Service team give you a call to discuss your needs. If you would rather communicate via email, please tell us that as well.

Check out our Design Services to see how we have helped others with their initial designs. You may see a lot of benefits of letting our professional designers give your layout the extra boost that will help it go from Plain Jane to Ooh-la-la!

Bulk Mail Options

Bulk mail is the biggest portion of the USPS’s revenue. Surprising? Not really.

Between the internet and private companies like FedEx and UPS, the postal service has lost a huge stream of mailing revenue. They have targeted Bulk Mail services as their hottest revenue stream. That is good news for us, as never before has bulk mail earned so much respect at the post office from mailing houses.

Bulk Mail rates are determined by class of mail, the speed of delivery you choose, region of the United States that the major quantity is being mailed to and by its weight and size. The most common rates are First Class, First Class Presorted and Regular Bulk. (Regular Bulk Mail is available with nonprofit rates if you are registered non profit at the post office).

Mailings will be delivered to the targeted mailbox between 1 to 10 days after they are received at the Bulk Mail Entrance Unit (BMEU) dependent on the rate that you choose.

Permits are needed at the post office in order to submit mail at the BMEU. We can use your permit number if you have a current account or you can use our account at no additional charge.

Postage charges are additional and are set by the post office. Postage should never receive an additional mark up by the mailer.

In order to mail using the bulk mail method, you must supply or purchase a database that contains a street address, city, state and zip code for each postcard. Your database doesn’t have to have a specific name, but mail is more credible to the consumer if there is personalization to the piece instead of “Current Resident”.

The database must have at least 200 pieces to be eligible for bulk mail entrance no matter which rate you choose. Also, except for the address on the piece, all mail must be identical in weight and size per submission.

First Class Mail

First Class Mail rates are used during the bulk process only if the piece needs exceptional speed to reach the target mailbox – 1 to 2 days. A printed indicia (located in the upper right corner of the mail piece) replaces a stamp and your supplied database goes through a verification process through software that connects to the USPS’s database.

After the database has been verified by the software and any new address information has been discovered through the verification process your mailing project is ready to be processed. Paperwork needed to submit to the post office is created and addressing begins on the mail pieces.

A decorative stamp can be applied to the piece if the customer wants the mail piece to appear more personalized. An additional permit is needed to use the stamp, but we are qualified for that and if you are using our permit, there is no problem.

First Class Presorted Mail

First Class Presorted Mail is widely used when speed is a factor (usually delivers in 2-3 days) or if the piece contains billing information from your company to a specific person with a specific cost.

Take your gas bill as an example. Ever wonder why their stamp only costs .39 or .40 cents instead of the current first class rate? It is because they are mailing first class presorted. The rules are the same as first class bulk, as far as quantity and paperwork, but the cost is about 9 or 10 cents cheaper than regular first class.

If your company sends out a large amount of bills each month, you should consider first class presort for cost savings on postage.

Regular Bulk Mail

Bulk mail is by far, the widest used method of mailing large quantities of mail. The cost of postage is approximately one half of first class mail.

The reason for this extreme discount is because the mailing house that prepares your mail is performing a large part of their work. This includes barcoding each piece, organizing the mailing routes in a very specific manner, traying the mail and delivering it to the post office with complete paperwork for your mailing.

This paperwork describes the attributes of the mailing which includes ownership of the mail, the mailhouse that created the paperwork, and then the number of pieces, its weight and size, a breakdown of the costs of postage and proof of software used to verify the mail and to update addresses for people or businesses that have moved.

Every Door Direct Mail "New to the Scene"

Another very hot method of bulk mailing services is Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM). The post office has come up with an easy way to target specific mail routes which allows you to put an unaddressed piece of mail into everybody’s mailbox on that route – with no exception.

Every Door Direct Mail is a great way for a brick and mortar business to advertise their business to their nearby neighbors to attract them to stop in for a service.

Another popular use is for service providers such as contractors, landscapers or general home repair companies to target neighborhoods that fit their services or have attributes that are attractive to them. This could be age of homes, income level or predominate age of inhabitants. The mail piece doesn’t use an address so if you don’t already have a database you don’t have to purchase or accumulate one.

The difference between Retail or Bulk for Every Door Direct is simple. For retail, the customer plans with the post office all of the mailing routes that they want to mail and after the printing is complete, the customer takes the post cards to the post office for submission into the mail stream.

With Bulk Every Door Direct, the customer works with the printer and then the printer submits the mailing to the BMEU. Go to www.USPS.com to get complete information about Every Door Direct Mail. You can plan your routes from there as well.

There are specific size requirements that need to be adhered to when mailing EDDM. Make sure you are working with a printer that has experience with this process.